by Tim Middleton
Imagine that! You spend years and years carefully planning for your perfect car, with all its essential items, numerous gadgets, intricate systems and special features while all the time saving up the necessary hard-earned cash to be able to afford it, to the point when one day you eventually manage to acquire it. You drive it home proudly and carefully; you take great care of it and are excited by its potential to take you far and wide, offering up enormous opportunities to you and your family. You enjoy the first few drives in it with great pride and enthusiasm when suddenly you are told that you are no longer fit to drive it; you must park it. You must leave it in the garage!
Or imagine a soccer club where the manager and board sit down to plan their way forward, what sort of player is going to be needed for the challenges ahead, who will fit in with the club’s values, approach and policies. They travel far and wide to study potential players who might fit their mould; they prepare existing players for the new arrival. They buy the player that they believe will transform the club and raise it to new heights. He comes in, is welcomed warmly (though perhaps not by the players whom he would be removing from the scene), joins in the training, gets to know the system and the team starts to show positive results. Soon, though, the player is injured and has to leave the field, with the effect that the team loses all sense of direction, purpose, hope and cohesion.
To some degree, the situations described above are a picture of what has happened in education recently. Years and years of extensive research, discussion, deliberation, consultation and explanation have gone into the New Curriculum with the aim to take this country forward powerfully and significantly. It has gradually been introduced and bang! It is in the garage now, off the road; it is out injured, no longer able to play its part in society. Schools have been closed due to the pandemic; education is not happening. What a sad, sad situation.
That may be the perceived view but this has to be said: education is indeed and in fact happening. Learning is going on, do not be deceived. Some would point to the fact that online learning or its other alternatives (be it on radio or however) is happening in some schools, many schools; schools have taken responsibility and gone out of their way to find ways to continue the education of the children of this country. Other people may wish to point out that teachers are teaching pupils privately now, in ones and twos or small groups, thus providing ongoing education for the children. Oh, yes, education is happening — but, of course, not everywhere. There are thousands of children for whom, for whatever reason, the car is in the garage, the player is on the side-lines.
Let us be clear: education is happening for all, without question. But let us also understand this: the education that is happening is not the new curriculum that has been so carefully, thoroughly, deeply designed. Learning is going on every minute of every day of this lockdown. Education is happening, whether we like it or not, are aware of it or not. If we think education is confined to a classroom we are much deceived; our children are learning many big, crazy lessons right now, through the internet, television, social media or the media; through their family and friends; through the behaviour and responses of leaders, followers and neighbours alike. They are learning as much from other people’s ignorance as from their intelligence. Instead of the fancy new powerful car or the exciting new star player, we have unsuitable alternatives offering rides and hope to everyone.
Our children are learning what it is like to be in prison; that most folk will break the law as they see fit; that everyone sees themselves as an expert in medicine and morals; that people are scared; that people do not handle crises well; that mental health is considered not an issue — most of all, perhaps, that formal, carefully-constructed holistic education conducted by professionally-trained personnel is not deemed to be that important, after all.
Is that the education we want for them? The powerful car of education is parked in the garage while dilapidated fourth-hand cars are running around freely and dangerously. We must not be deceived into thinking that our children are not learning because schools are closed; they are learning, big-time. It is just a question of whether we are happy with what they are learning.
